Pres­i­dent of the San­gre Grande Cham­ber Richard Mo­hammed has said that San­gre Grande is fac­ing a traf­fic cri­sis which is damp­en­ing the town’s at­trac­tive­ness and rep­u­ta­tion do­mes­ti­cal­ly.

He said the Cham­ber has en­gaged in dis­cus­sions with the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port with re­gards to the High­way De­vel­op­ment Project, paving of the streets of the town and en­hance­ment of the pave­ments and beau­ti­fi­ca­tion projects.

Mo­hammed made the com­ment dur­ing the in­stal­la­tion of the Cham­ber’s new ex­ec­u­tive.

He said the Cham­ber has at­tend­ed meet­ings with the Min­istry of Trade and has en­gaged in dis­cus­sions on the set­ting up of a Free Zone busi­ness dis­trict in San­gre Grande.

He said, “With the ex­pect­ed pop­u­la­tion growth and em­ploy­ment fore­cast, in­fra­struc­tur­al de­vel­op­ment must be pri­ori­tised as part of our plan­ning for city of San­gre Grande. Our mem­bers are telling us they are feel­ing the cost of con­ges­tion.”

He added: ‘We can and must solve the con­ges­tion prob­lem. Traf­fic plans were passed in 2012 and still wait­ing to be im­ple­ment­ed. But it is our mix of in­dige­nous SMEs that is key to our suc­cess. It’s our small and medi­um busi­ness­es that give San­gre Grande its char­ac­ter and have a key role to play in sus­tain­ing and dri­ving place and peo­ple cen­tered de­vel­op­ment.”

Mo­hammed said San­gre Grande is pop­u­lat­ed by many en­tre­pre­neurs who have worked cre­ative­ly and with de­ter­mi­na­tion to in­vest, build and main­tain their liveli­hoods in the East.

“The thing is we need to keep in­vest­ing and we can’t af­ford to let San­gre Grande fall be­hind – be­cause if it does the rest of the towns in the East coast will fall be­hind too. Its wel­com­ing peo­ple, its arts and cul­ture and nat­ur­al beau­ty in­spire all. We each have a role to play in grow­ing our econ­o­my, to cre­ate em­ploy­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties and im­prove so­cial and com­mu­ni­ty well-be­ing. We must fight tire­less­ly against com­pla­cen­cy. We must have the courage to think big, he told at­ten­dees at the cer­e­mo­ny.

He said with the ex­pect­ed pop­u­la­tion growth and em­ploy­ment fore­cast, in­fra­struc­tur­al de­vel­op­ment must be pri­ori­tised.

“Our mem­bers are telling us they are feel­ing the cost of con­ges­tion. San­gre Grande is fac­ing a traf­fic cri­sis that is damp­en­ing our at­trac­tive­ness and rep­u­ta­tion do­mes­ti­cal­ly. We can and must solve the con­ges­tion prob­lem. Traf­fic plans were passed in 2012 and still wait­ing to be im­ple­ment­ed, “ he said.

He al­so not­ed: “We each have a role to play in grow­ing our econ­o­my, to cre­ate em­ploy­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties and im­prove so­cial and com­mu­ni­ty well-be­ing. We must fight tire­less­ly against com­pla­cen­cy.”